Imagine you are living in the late 1930s and coming from England to Australia. It is a long trip, but one you are looking forward to as you have been lucky enough to secure a ticket on one of the Flying Boats. Many who go to Australia are forced to book passage on a boat, but if you have the money you can choose to come on a flying boat – more expensive but much more luxurious, quicker and so exciting!
When I showed this postcard of the Rose Bay Flying Boat Base to the children some of them were quite underwhelmed. They could see that the planes were just that, so saw no mystery to discover. When they realised that they were resting in the water though, not on concrete they were more impressed. Some had also been at the recent International Fleet Review in Sydney and seen one of the last flying catalinas fly overhead, so discovering more about the history of the amazing planes made the card far more interesting.
Flying Boats, like those in the picture above, were designed mainly to carry first class air mail, but they were soon playing an important role not just in air transport, but even in war. In the 1930s international air travel was very new and there were few airfields which could cater to the enormous planes which were able to fly the long distances. These large planes also had trouble navigating over large, open expanses of water and most problematic of all, frequently needed to stop to refuel – in the 1930s a trip between Australia and England could include 31 stops! In 1938 though the first of the Empire Class Flying Boats arrived in Sydney, aeroplanes which could land on water, were big enough to allow international travel and which didn’t need a huge airfield. Soon they were flying between England and Australia, via Singapore, India, The Middle East and Egypt. The flying boats were based in Rose Bay, and were extremely luxurious. Carrying only 15 passengers and 5 crew, everybody travelled first class and a single ticket cost more than the average yearly wage!
The golden age of the flying boat was short lived though. Only one year after the first flying boats arrived in Sydney, the Second World War broke out and all luxuries were stripped out of the flying boats and replaced with guns and bombs. Their size and ability to land on water made the flying boats perfect for war service. At first, international travel was still allowed, with the mail cargo simply replaced by ammunition and the return journey carrying refugees instead of luxury passengers, but in 1942, one of the flying boats was attacked by the Japanese, with only 5 of the 18 passengers and crew surviving. Within two weeks, Singapore fell and the route to England was cut off. Many more of the Empire Class Flying Boats were lost, but it was also in wartime that the most successful of the flying boats arrived in Australia – The Catalina’s. Designed as patrol bombers for the US Navy, they were versatile, virtually indestructible and able to fly much further without refuelling. At the end of the war though, the flying boats were somewhat obsolete as other aircraft could now make the long journeys more quickly, though in less comfort. It was this which heralded in the second golden age of the flying boat though, as passengers could choose to travel more slowly but in great comfort. The last flying boat services in Australia were in the 1970s, with Rose Bay Flying Boat Base closed in 1977.